Worse Than A Family Dinner
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: Sirius snuck down to the cellar because he thought nothing could be worse than spending Christmas eve with his family. He was wrong. Written for Kinky Kristmas 2013.


**Title:** Worse Than a Family Dinner  
**Characters/Pairings:** Bellatrix/Sirius  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Warnings:** Non-con, underage (Sirius is fourteen), object insertion, Fem!Dom, age disparity (obviously), anal, sadism, terribly unsafe/unsanitary use of a wine bottle.  
**Word Count:** 5,627  
**Summary/Description:** Sirius snuck down to the cellar because he thought nothing could be worse than spending Christmas eve with his family. He was wrong.  
**Author's Notes:** Written for Kinky Kristmas on daily_deviant, for akatnamedeaster's prompt "A bad Christmas eve".

)O(

Sirius thought that nothing could be worse than spending Christmas eve at dinner with his family. So much as thinking about the endless hours of supreme boredom and bottled anger that would no-doubt plague him during dinner conversation (not to mention the infinitely worse _after_-dinner conversation, when other families would join the festivities and when talk would assuredly turn to politics and where words like "Mudblood" ・and "Half-breed" would be thrown about as casually as if they had no meeting) was enough to twist Sirius's stomach into a painful knot and make his throat feel like someone had a hand around it.

As had become his practice with these family gatherings, Sirius waited until the situation was such that everyone but himself was distracted – on this particular occasion, the adults had turned their focus to berating his cousin Bellatrix about not marrying Rodolphus Lestrange yet, and the younger generation was watching with interest – then, doing as little as he could to draw attention to himself, he stood and stepped out the door. No one so much as glanced at him, and if anyone _had_ seen him, they had paid no more attention to him than they usually did. By the time someone mentioned that he had been gone for a long time (if they ever got around to mentioning it), he would be well-hidden and they most likely wouldn't call off dinner to go hunting for him.

He made for the wine cellar and crept down the stairs, and only when he reached the bottom did he dare relax and heave a sigh of relief.

If he'd had to listen to his father tell one more story about Mudbloods trying to get into the Ministry, he was quite sure he would throw a book of carols at his head. At least on ordinary days, if Orion decided to start spouting off nonsense about Pureblood supremacy, Sirius could get himself sent to bed without supper, which was a welcome reprieve. But _no_, on Christmas, he was _required_ to smile and pretend to care about all that nonsense, on pain of…

Well. He didn't like to think about the pain.

It was a mercy that not a soul in their family paid any attention to him when he was present, except to occasionally reprimand him. He felt a twinge of sympathy for his poor brother, who was the family's pet, and who couldn't have gotten away from a dinner if he had wanted to.

Sirius's idle musing was interrupted by a creak in the stairs. He stiffened and shrunk into the shadows, and squinted upwards, trying to make out a figure in the dim light of the one ever-burning lantern that sat by the foot of the stairs. He could see the sweep of a long skirt, but that only narrowed it down to the women of the household, which gave Sirius precious little information about what to do. If he was found down here by Andromeda, he needn't fear. If it was his mother, come to search for him, he could anticipate a particularly harsh flogging, punishments that would last for days, and worse of all, having to return to dinner.

"Congratulations on getting away from them," the woman said, and Sirius recognized Bellatrix's voice. He didn't even quite have an opportunity to decide how he should react before he was at the bottom of the stairs and sweeping past him to examine rows of wine bottles.

"W- why are you down here?" he asked, mouth dry, when he was sure that she didn't have the intention (not the immediate one, at least) of hauling him back upstairs to rejoin the party.

She ignored him for a moment, and plucked a bottle off the rack. She took her time opening the cork and tasting it before she said, " much the same reason as you, I expect. Assuming that you're down here to avoid your family. Only I don't know why you are, since they haven't said a word to you – they've been too busy bothering me about marriage." Bellatrix made a soft, disgusted noise. She took a gulp of wine and grimaced. "I'm sure that your parents would love to have you upstairs, singing Christmas songs or whatever the Hell children do these days."

"Shut up," was all Sirius could think to say. Bellatrix didn't seem troubled by his sharpness. She just took another sip, then set the bottle down and sidled over him, swaying her hips theatrically with every step.

"So, what were you planning to do while you were hiding down here, then? Were you down here to get a drink too? Or maybe to, ah…" She glanced down quickly, then back up and gave him a cheeky smirk, "Have a little private time?"

"Fuck off."

"Bit snappy, aren't we?" She tapped him on the nose with one finger. "Haven't Mummy and Daddy taught you any manners? All I did was ask a question. And, I mean, that's what _I_ would have done when _I_ was fourteen."

Sirius's mouth suddenly felt very dry. One corner of Bellatrix's lips quirked up into something that he could have loosely described as a smile.

"Well. You must have known that's what I would think when I saw you down here – I mean, here you are, all alone in a cellar, without even an open bottle… what else would you be doing? After all,_surely_ you wouldn't want to just skip out on such a _lovely_ family party for no reason." She drew the word _lovely_ out, enunciating every sound, and Sirius wanted to give her a smack to shut her up.

"What about you, then?" Sirius snapped back. "Why are you down here? Shouldn't you be up enjoying the party as well? How are you going to enjoy the after-dinner party from down here? Aren't you looking forward to going on about how much you hate Mudbloods and Muggles – and maybe flirting with Rodolphus Lestrange, or whoever else the man of the minute happens to be?"

"You're so crude, you know." Bellatrix didn't sound much like she thought he was crude. She sounded more amused than anything. "I'm perfectly faithful to dear Rodolphus. Well, most of the time, at any rate. When it counts – which is when he's watching."

"You say that, and _I'm_ the crude one?" Sirius demanded, shocked that she could say something so carelessly - as if he might not go to Rodolphus, and tell him what she had said. Maybe she just didn't care - but Sirius was quite sure that, if he was in her place, he would have. Besides, it was simply impolite to be so _forward_ about one's infidelity.

"Oh, don't look so shocked! As if you've never heard anyone say anything so shameful as that they aren't worried about being proper when no one is watching. As if _you've_ ever been concerned with propriety!" Bellatrix tipped back her head and laughed, laughing off the very idea.

He pressed his lips together. "Maybe you should be a little more concerned than you are. I could go right up those stairs and tell Rodolphus Lestrange that you aren't interested in being faithful to him, and then he'd–

"Do what?" she challenged, the facsimile of a smile dropping from her face. "I don't think you understand what my relationship with dear Rodolphus is like. I do what I want, and he follows me around like a lovesick puppy. He's not very bright, you see."

"You really are awful, aren't you?" Sirius tried to twist his face into an expression of sheer disgust, but failed and managed only a sullen pout, which made Bellatrix giggle.

"So I've been told. Oh, you haven't the first idea how awful I am. You wouldn't know. Rodolphus knows," she added, smiling wickedly. "He understands a lot about me, you see... a lot about what a terrible... terrible person I can be, when that's what I want..."

Sirius swallowed hard. Bellatrix's face had taken on a peculiar, almost wistful expression, and he didn't like it. "I think I'm going to go back upstairs."

"Oh, but we were just starting to talk, dear cousin! We never talk." Whether Bellatrix was teasing him, or genuinely wanted to talk to him, he wasn't sure, though he _was_ sure that if she _did_ really want to talk to him, it wouldn't be for any pleasant sort of reason. Probably only to torture him more. She grabbed his arm very tightly, and her fingers dug into his skin through his shirt.

"Now," she said authoritatively, "tell me, what were you down here to do, if it wasn't drinking, and it wasn't masturbating? Were you going to meet someone down here?"

"Get off!"

"Hush. I'm asking you a question, and you should answer it, instead of going on saying things like 'get off' when you know full well that I'm not going to do it just because you tell me to. Now,_darling_," again, she dragged out the word, "tell me, were you going to meet someone down here?"

"No," he snapped. "I only wanted to get away from my parents for a bit. Is that so difficult to understand?"

"Oh, not in the slightest!" Bellatrix seemed rather pleased with that answer - she loosened her grip, at any rate. "Your parents are awfully irritating. It must be far worse if you can't drink - I can only stand listening to them if I drink myself half-stupid. I don't blame you for wanting to get away from them."

Sirius lifted one shoulder slightly in a little half-shrug. "And you just came down for wine? Isn't there enough of that upstairs?"

"There's never enough." Bellatrix let go of him entirely to tip another mouthful of wine past her lips. "And they don't let me drink more than a little glass at a time. I need it if I'm going to sit up there and smile through the rest of the night... but, of course, meeting you down here - well, that brightened up my whole evening. Catching you alone..."

She trailed off, and Sirius wasn't sure what she was planning to say, but her lips turned up, then she leaned against the wall beside him. Her body was very close to his, so close that he could smell the wine on her breath.

"So, Sirius, darling," she murmured. "Tell me about your life - it's as I said, we never talk. Tell me, how is school? Are you still hanging about with those Half-blood friends of yours that Regulus told me about?"

Sirius made a mental note to give Regulus a smack later for telling Bellatrix about his friends – ・he had insisted that Regulus shouldn't tell anyone in the family that Sirius was associating with anyone except the accepted sorts. At least Regulus didn't know about Remus; what a disaster things would have been if the family knew that Sirius was friends with a werewolf...

"I take that as a yes. Oh dear, Sirius, how are you ever going to get anywhere when those are your only friends?" She tsked, and tipped her head to the side. "What girl will ever want a boy who spent all his teenage years mucking about with Gryffindors? Shame on you, Sirius."

"You act as though your sorts of friends are something to be desired," Sirius snapped back at her. He could stand her insulting him – and he enjoyed hearing her speak ill of his parents – but he wouldn't listen to a word against his friends. "I'd sooner be with Gryffindors than with a bunch of self-absorbed Death Eaters in training."

"You're saying 'Death Eaters in training' as if it's something to be ashamed of. Death Eaters are the ones who will come out on top in the end, just you wait and see." She narrowed her eyes and squinted at him. "I'm glad that Rodolphus and his brother are so close to the Dark Lord – they're only young, of course, but they're already much more important to him than a lot of the older Death Eaters... in a few years, Rodolphus will probably be one of his highest ranking–

"Is that why you put up with him, then?" Sirius interrupted. "Do you want to ride off his success and use him to make sure that you're in the Dark Lord's good books?"

Bellatrix didn't even blink. "Of course. Why else would I accept his proposal?"

"Something about love or mutual respect or the rest of those things that people talk about in marriage vows. I haven't the foggiest, really; I didn't expect any of that from you."

"Well, there's certainly no love to be had for Rodolphus." Bellatrix didn't seem to perceive his slight. She didn't even look at him. " At least he's better looking than his brother. But the Dark Lord's more important than either of them."

"Bet you'd marry him if you could."

"I certainly would."

"But then you wouldn't be allowed to run about with whatever stupid swot you decided you fancied at any party. Wouldn't that be a loss?"

"If I had the Dark Lord? Certainly not." Bellatrix looked a little glassy-eyed, though whether that was from thinking about the Dark Lord, or because she had downed a quarter of the wine bottle just while standing here, and who knew how much more she had drunk upstairs, Sirius couldn't have been sure. "But as it is, I'm stuck with men who get invited to these parties. Dreadfully boring, all of them – and at family parties, well! Half the men are relations, and all so much younger or older than me... I don't have many options. It's very disappointing."

"You're sick in the head," was all Sirius could think to say to that. He felt his cheeks growing hot as he thought about Bellatrix sizing up people at the party, looking for the best one to sneak off with.

"So I've been told."

"So, why don't you go back upstairs and keep wait for more suitable targets to arrive, then, and leave me alone?"

Bellatrix didn't say anything, but fixed Sirius with a sharp stare that he shrunk under. She was looking at him with a combination of the look she had given the wine bottle before she had opened it, and the look that one might give a particularly stupid child.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Are you really so thick, Sirius?" Her voice had dropped a few notes. "You really haven't any idea why I'm still down here?"

"To torment me, I suppose."

"You could say that."

"Well, aren't you through?"

"I haven't even gotten started." She was now absolutely _purring_ her words, and she had moved even closer to him. He stepped away when her breasts brushed against his arm.

"Come on," she breathed. " Use that pretty little head of yours. You know why I'm _really_ here, I'm sure you do… "

"I d– oh!"

Sirius had started to say _I don't_, but he cut himself off when Bellatrix's hand snaked down to his trousers and squeezed his crotch.

Bellatrix smirked. "You get the idea now, don't you?" ・

He had lost his ability to speak, and could only stare at her, stunned. Bellatrix took the opportunity to squeeze him again.

When Sirius found his voice, all he could manage was to stammer out, "S- stop- get off me! I'm I don't-"

"Hush, love." She set down her bottle of wine and put her finger against his lips. "Take a few deep breaths. You'll feel better."

Sirius wanted to shove her away, but his arms seemed to have stopped working. In fact, everything about him seemed to have stopped working, because he couldn't quite make himself tell her to get away from him either. She took the opportunity to slip her hand down his trousers, and Sirius only found his voice when Bellatrix's hand was wrapped around his cock. Her fingers skimmed up and down the length, and Sirius's body betrayed him by twitching under her touch.

"I'll scream," he managed at last. "I'll scream if you don't get your hands off me right this minute."

"No, you won't." How Bellatrix managed to sound so absolutely confident was beyond him. Sirius would have been jumping at shadows if he had tried to do something like this – but then, Bellatrix wasn't burdened by anything as inconvenient as a conscience.

Sirius opened his mouth and drew in breath, but she clapped her free hand over his mouth. The little smirk she had been wearing slipped off her face.

"Don't try it," she hissed. Her nails dug into him and Sirius couldn't help jolting and whimpering through her fingers. "Believe me, you'll regret it. You're just in shock right now, aren't you, love? Has anyone ever done this with you before?"

"No," Sirius mumbled against her hand, and her little smirk returned.

"Well, that explains it, doesn't it? If you weren't a scared… little… virgin…" She punctuated each word with a little squeeze that made Sirius wince, "You'd be begging for it by now."

_I certainly would not._

"How did you even make it to fourteen without doing this?" She moved her hand off his mouth and smoothed it over his cheek and neck instead. Sirius twisted away from her touch. "I'd have thought that a pretty boy like you would have had half a dozen girlfriends already."

"Not everyone's as much of a slut as you are, I suppose," Sirius spat at her.

Bellatrix's expression was unchanged, and she ran her hand slowly up and down the length of his cock. Much to his dismay, he could feel himself stiffening, and a pleasant, tingling tightness building in his lower belly. "You know, if I were in your position, I'd keep a civil tongue in my head. I'm doing you quite a favour. There are so many men who would kill to have me touch them like this…"

"Then go touch one of them," he said, though his voice lacked some of the conviction it had previously had.

"And give up the challenge? Where would the fun be in that?" She pushed his trousers down, letting them fall around his ankles and leaving him feeling horribly exposed. Sirius was painfully aware that he was erect, and how his cock was straining against Bellatrix's hand, how drops of pre-come were already leaking onto her fingers – and she'd barely even done anything. Sirius loathed his body for reacting to her, and he loathed himself even more for letting out a little groan when she jerked her hand twice up and down his shaft.

"You'll make some girls very happy someday," Bellatrix purred. "When you'v grown a little bit more…"

Sirius bit down on his lip to prevent himself from making a noise. Bellatrix's hand felt very different from his own – soft and uncalloused, and moving slowly and deliberately instead of working quickly and roughly the way he did when he touched himself.

"So, this really is your first time having a woman play with you?" she murmured, and he dared not lie – he might be able to get away with pretending to his friends that he was experienced, but he had a feeling that Bellatrix would know if he didn't tell the truth. He nodded.

"Well. Good. Do you realize how lucky you are?" Her hand dipped down and cupped his balls, already full and aching. "Having _me_ take your virginity? You ought to be thanking me on your knees." She smirked as if he'd said something funny. If she had, Sirius had been too distracted to notice it.

"I don't want you to." ・

"Of course you want me to. Come on, give us a kiss." She didn't give him a chance to respond before she smashed her lips against his, hard enough to hurt, hard enough to bruise. Her mouth tasted like the wine she had just been drinking. He struggled a little against her, but he didn't dare move too much when her fingernails were resting against such a delicate part of him.

"That's right. No struggling. We're going to have fun here, Sirius." Bellatrix pulled back and tossed her hair back out of her eyes, which were gleaming. "I _promise_ you'll enjoy it."

"Go to Hell," Sirius mumbled. Bellatrix took no notice. She placed both her hands firmly on his shoulders and pushed downwards. Sirius stumbled and ended up on his knees, and Bellatrix took advantage of that to shove him face-down into the floorboards. The breath was nearly knocked out of him, and he wheezed for air and got only nostrils full of dust. Bellatrix seemed wholly unconcerned by his shortness of breath. She held his head in place against the ground and pushed his knees forward, underneath him, until his backside was high in the air and the grain of the boards was digging into his cheek.

"Not bad," Bellatrix murmured. She had one hand on the back of Sirius's neck, her fingers resting almost idly on the soft spaces on either side of it. He tried to move, and she dug her fingers in – briefly, but just hard enough to make his body tense automatically and severely.

"You're not really going to try to get away when you're in this state, are you?" she asked, and with her other hand, she tugged at his trousers until he felt them pulled entirely free. Her hand left the back of his neck and he glanced back and watched, stomach twisting into knots, as she wrapped his trousers securely around his knees and knotted them. The fabric dug into his legs and he winced a little when she tugged.

"There," she said, catching his eye and smiling sweetly. "And don't give me that look – it's only a precaution of sorts. I can't have you running away, can I?"

Sirius's mouth was completely dry. He couldn't say a word, which was, perhaps, just as well, for if he had been able to speak he would probably have thrown a stream of profanity at Bellatrix, and perhaps it was wisest not to do anything to upset her when she had him in a situation of such vulnerability.

Bellatrix seemed to take his silence for assent, or perhaps she simply didn't care what he thought about her and her precautions. She reached over for her bottle of wine and took a deep swig of it. Wine splashed over her lips and she wiped it with the back of her hand.

"Why, Sirius, it's been minutes and you haven't said a word," she said after a time, with an air of falsely innocent surprise. "You know, it really is a pleasant change to have you so quiet, but a touch dull, given the situation. I'd rather hear you say something... scream, perhaps, or beg."

Sirius swallowed hard. He didn't want to think about what Bellatrix could do to make him scream or beg, but unbidden, images filled his mind. He'd heard Bellatrix talk – out of earshot of adults, of course – about practicing the Cruciatus curse, or any number of other spells for various sorts of pain. If she had been telling anything close to the truth... Sirius's body stiffened and he shrunk in slightly on himself at the thought.

"Scared?"

"Should I be?"

"Absolutely." Bellatrix ran her finger slowly up the crack between his legs. "You should be terrified. You should probably be in tears right now."

"I'm not going to cry for _you_," Sirius told her stubbornly.

Bellatrix snorted. "We'll see."

He ground his teeth down on his tongue while her fingers probed at him none too gently. She didn't even have her fingers in him yet, but the anticipation was worse than any pain could have been. Whether Bellatrix knew this and was drawing out the waiting, or whether she was simply savouring the moment for her own pleasure, he didn't know.

When she forced her fingers into him, he managed to bite back a noise of protest, but only just. Tears sprang to his eyes, more as an automatic reaction to the new and uncomfortable feeling of being stretched than because he was in genuine pain, but he didn't expect Bellatrix to appreciate that nuance – that he was not crying for her – and so he put his head on his hands and tried to brush away his tears while she forced her fingers in and out at an ever-increasing pace. Her nails caught him, the friction chafed badly, and Sirius tried not to think about how he would manage to sit or walk without experiencing excruciating pain. He couldn't imagine the pain he was feeling ever subsiding.

Bellatrix giggled when Sirius let out an inadvertent whimper. "You're being very brave. Most boys work themselves into dreadful states when I do things like this for them. I'm impressed, really I am."

She didn't sound the slightest bit impressed. She sounded amused, and also rather excited, but as if she was restraining her excitement – why, Sirius didn't know, when clearly they weren't in any sort of circumstance that suggested one should observe social niceties like _not_ bursting into fits of giggles over one's cousin being sodomized. Sirius would have told her to fuck off if he thought he could say it with the proper amount of enthusiasm and without sounding teary.

Bellatrix withdrew her fingers with even less care than she had inserted them. The burn was followed by a few seconds of blissful relief, but Sirius didn't dare hope that the ordeal was over. For a few moments, he felt nothing, and didn't dare look around, though he heard Bellatrix moving. He could pray that she was getting up and preparing to leave, and that he wouldn't even have to look at her, but he didn't really believe it, and he tensed again when he felt something wet and cold trickling against his hole.

"What are you doing?" Sirius's attempts to stay quiet were abandoned, and he didn't even bother to hide the panic. Bellatrix laughed – not a sweet and dangerous little giggle, but a genuine laugh, as if she was hearing something hilariously funny.

"Oh, Sirius, your voice is so much nicer when you sound scared."

"What are you doing?" he repeated shrilly. A cold, hard object bumped against his arse, and he sputtered, "I swear, if you stick something in–"

But he broke off and his words turned into a strangled cry that he barely managed to muffle in the back of his hands. Bellatrix was working something hard and cold into him, and even with the slight preparation that Bellatrix's fingers had afforded, the shock of having something so rigid and unforgiving inside him was almost more than he could bear.

"Don't," he choked. Bellatrix didn't laugh at that, but she grabbed his neck and twisted his head so he faced her, and she was smiling widely, almost serenely.

"Relax and enjoy yourself, dear cousin," she told him. "You won't do yourself any good by getting upset over it. That's what I always tell them, and they never believe me when I say it..." She clicked her tongue mock-disapprovingly, but didn't bother to hide her smile. " People get so distressed by a little bit of fun like this."

There were an awful lot of ways that Sirius could describe what she was doing to him, and not a single one of them involved anything resembling the word _fun_. He twisted further and very nearly retched when he realized that the cold, unyielding object that Bellatrix was working so enthusiastically in and out of him was the neck of a wine bottle. He prayed that it was empty and clean.

Bellatrix moaned with all the enthusiasm as if she was the one being penetrated, and was thoroughly enjoying it. Sirius felt like he was being torn apart from the inside.

"Oh, yes, oh _yes_," Bellatrix mumbled, and she punctuated her words by pumping the neck of the bottle deep into his arse. "That's nice, isn't it? I wish I could feel what you're like inside; you're clenching so tightly..."

_Humiliating._

"Get off. Get off." What wouldn't Sirius have given to be back upstairs, listening to his parents talk loudly about how awful anyone who wasn't a Pureblood was? It would have to be better than _this_. He had withstood parties before. He wasn't sure that he'd be able to get through this ordeal without breaking down completely.

Bellatrix paused and Sirius chanced a glance backwards. If he had hoped that her hesitation meant that she was finished with him (or, however unlikely it might be, that she had realized what she was doing and was going to stop), he was sorely mistaken. Bellatrix had one hand braced against the cellar wall, and the other hand between her legs, working frantically as she rocked her hips back and forth. Sirius almost retched.

This wasn't how things were meant to have been. This wasn't how this evening was supposed to go, and this _certainly_ wasn't how he had been meant to lose his virginity.

Could this even be called 'losing his virginity'?

Bellatrix's hand returned to the bottle and he gritted his teeth, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't hold back his whimpers. The pain of being being stretched and torn had spread through his whole body, and any pleasure that he had felt when Bellatrix used her hand on his cock had long since faded. All that was left to do was wait for it to be over.

She was moaning softly, and the hand guiding the bottle had begun to tremble. If he hadn't reached a point where all he could do was expect physical pain from her, he probably would have been freshly distressed by the way the glass was shuddering inside him. As it was, he hoped it meant that she was close to finishing and then it would finally _end_.

Then the bottle was being pulled out of him – agonizingly slowly; _why couldn't she just hurry it up?_ – and Sirius dared to hope for a moment that it really was over, but his hopes were dashed when Bellatrix pushed him onto his back and smirked down at him. Her pupils were fully dilated, though he couldn't have guessed whether it was from arousal, or only from the dim light. She held him in place, his knees bound together and cramped into a bent position so he was as comically immobile as a beetle on its back. He knew that there were tears on his cheeks, and he didn't even bother to wipe them away.

"Poor Sirius," Bellatrix murmured, in a voice choked with blatant lust. "It's not your fault you look so pretty when you're in pain. Oh, here..." She took his hand and pressed it in between her thighs. He could feel dampness on her skirt and shuddered involuntarily.

Bellatrix flattened herself against him, her breasts against his chest and her mouth over his. Sirius couldn't properly call it a kiss – not even a harsh, rough kiss, not even in the loosest sense. She was rocking her hips back and forth, and though Sirius was barely moving his hand and certainly didn't know what he was supposed to be doing with it, he must have been doing something right, because after a few moments, Bellatrix shuddered deeply, and then she rolled off him and knelt beside him, head bent and breast heaving as she drew deep, shuddering breaths. Sirius, for his part, held his breath and watched her worriedly.

"You," she said at last, between deep, shuddering breaths, "Are _much_ more fun than Rodolphus Lestrange."

He considered snapping at her – something to the effect of _what, did you do this to him too?_ – but he didn't dare say another word for fear that she would decide she actually wasn't satisfied and she needed to do something more to him.

But Bellatrix seemed to have quite abruptly lost interest in him. She stood up and straightened and brushed off her skirt. She patted her hair back into place and wiped perspiration from her forehead. She kicked the wine bottle – merely looking at it was enough to make Sirius cringe – out of sight into a corner. Then she smiled down at Sirius more brightly and sweetly than she had ever smiled at him before.

"Well, you'd better get yourself cleaned up, and work out a good explanation for being away from the table. Your parents will probably be wondering by now." Her voice was bright and blithe, not even touched with a hint of malice or scorn or even satisfaction. _How?_ How did she manage not to betray any sign that she had just...

She plucked a bottle of wine off the shelves without even glancing at the label and started for the stairs. When she was halfway up, she turned back and looked at Sirius again, and her lips twisted into a wicked smile.

"I think you should know that that was, without a doubt, the best Christmas eve I've ever experienced. It's a shame I don't think you felt the same way. If you'd enjoyed it as much as I had, we could make this a tradition."

Sirius didn't even have the energy left in him to tell her to go to Hell.

)O(

_Fin_


End file.
